Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Gardening with Ben. You'll go to
a podcast for all things green and growing. I'm Ben,
your allotment guide and here to help you cultivate your
garden and your passion for plants. Whether you're a seasoned
gardener or just starting out, this podcast is for you.
Each episode will dig into tips, tricks, and techniques to
make your garden and allotment thrive from planting, sewing, and growing.
We will share all.
Speaker 2: The tips and add advice.
Speaker 1: We will also have regular episodes talking about what we
have been up to on the Alltment. So sit back,
grab a brew and enjoy today's episode. Hey everyone, and
welcome back to Gardening with Ben for your Friday's episode.
I hope you're all excited for the weekend. I know
I certainly am, And yeah, I'm looking forward to getting
all them jobs done down at the allotment again. And
if you'll have heard previously in my other episodes, is
that at the moment, I'm just concentrating on improving it
and getting it all ready for next year, and just
tidying it up, making it all neat tidy, getting rid
of all the weeds, getting rid of any rubbish on
my plot or any stones in the soil and stuff
like that, just making it all healthy again ready for
next year. Because I'm not a very tidy gardener. I've
said this many times. I'm a messy gardener and one
of these that will plant my plants and then just
leave the plant pots at the side on the path,
all the trains around and stuff like that. I should
really be more tidy and be more presentable. But maybe
we'll put that on our New Year's resolutions for next year,
to be a lot more tidy and make it look
more neater and aesthetic. If I can actually say that
word and make it look more beautiful. And hopefully next
year we'll be doing a lot more in making it
look better and hopefully do some improvements. And like I said,
through the wintertime, I'll be rebuilding all my beds, getting
them all screwed together again, giving them all early pay looking,
making it look fresh again, and replacing any wood that's
rotted away. And I use this time as spending quite
a bit of money. I spent quite a bit of
money on my allotment. I'll hold my hands up to that.
As I don't have a garden. I don't have any hobbies,
and this is my only hobby and it's what I
enjoy doing, so I.
Speaker 2: Don't mind putting some money into it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, they say that you do gardening and allotment
to save money.
Speaker 2: I probably don't save money, but.
Speaker 1: I do it more for enjoyment and for peace of
mind and for my mental health, mainly just being outside
in the fresh air, and I do prefer I do
love the summer and getting an sometime and being out
in the fresh air. But I do love the cold
weather as well, when it's nice and crisp and it's
nice and fresh out there where you could come over
and feel feel like you've felt it on your face
if you get me. And fresh air is obviously good
for you as well. It ties you out, but it
makes you feel better in the long run for being outside.
And even like at this time you were having bonfires
and the smell of bonfires that always goes down well,
which means I'll probably have to have a bonfire soon.
I think that's one thing that I do need to do,
but it's just finding a nice, dry day to do it.
But thankfully, this week has been pretty nice and I
think we're heading towards a heatwave they mentioned. I don't
know if it's still true or not if we're going
to get a heat with this week, but we'll see
what it's like. Hopefully it might be some baby weather
at the weekend.
Speaker 2: You never know.
Speaker 1: But what are we going to talk about in today's podcast? Well,
today's podcast is going to be talking about the main
things that you plant at this time of year. I
know we've obviously done the podcast talking about everything you
can plant this month, but what do I plant personally
this month? Like I can read you out everything that
you meant to plant this month, but what if I
actually planted this month? What am I growing in my
allotment in November? As obviously a lot of people follow
me and follow what I do, so I'll share with
you exactly what I am growing and whether anybody wants
to try growing some stuff, I feel free to follow
along as well. So at this time of year, I've
obviously I got given a load of onion bulbs or
some onion bulbs, so we've got all them in And
to be honest, I've never really grown autum onion bulbs.
Speaker 2: I've grown them.
Speaker 1: From March time when you plant the summer bulb the
normal onion bulbs. I've planted them many a times from
like March time, and I've also planted onions from seed
at the same time. I've done like a little comparison
in the past to see which actually do better, the
onion seed or the onion set, and it was surprisingly
that the onion seed did a lot better than the set.
I don't know why, but that one came out the best.
And they were both planted in the same soil, and
they wore the same and both fed the same as well,
so the seed did better when I actually grew the onions.
So I've never actually grown them from this time of year,
so it's going to be interesting to see how well
they actually do. And they've been in now probably three weeks.
I've shared a video on YouTube, but I did it
of all the onions being planted and how to plant
them and where to plant them and how how far
aparty should plant them, and they've stille that actually sent
out any shoots yet. I think I've got one onion
that had just sent out some shoots this week, So
fingers cross wont go back to the allotment this weekend.
Mar will have sent the shops out, because it seems
a long time that it's taken about three weeks from
to send the shoots out. I thought they'd be quite faster,
to be honest, and I've planted yellow ones and red ones,
so I've never had any look with red onions.
Speaker 2: They always seem to go to seed. So we'll see.
We'll see if the.
Speaker 1: Autumn ones do better than the normal ones. Let me
know by sending me a message if you grow any
autumn onions and how well yours have done in the past,
or whether you just stick to growing them from March
time when I usually plant them. I might plant some
more in March. We'll see how much space we've got
and try and get some maring as well as compare
them see which ones actually do biggest, whether it be
the autumn ones that are started off or whether it
be the normal ones that we start at March. And
they're usually both ready at the same time around June
July time, so you're just planting them that bit earlier
than the autumn ones to give them that little head
start and that little push. But obviously they've got to
be the autumn varieties if you are starting them at
this time of year.
Speaker 2: And if you're in the.
Speaker 1: Garden centers, they're usually out and about at this time
of year, so you shouldn't get yourself muddled up because
they won't have the other varieties out at this time
of year. So the ones that usually on display at
this time of year there will be the ones that
you grow. So what else have we planted. We've planted
are garlic. Now we've planted absolutely loads of different varieties
of garlic this year. Like in the past, I've just
usually used about twenty cloves and planted them, and this
year I must have planted about sixty sixty cloves altogether.
Now you're probably thinking he lives on his own. It's single.
Why would you want the sixty garlic, you asked me.
I don't even know myself, but yes, I've planted about
sixty cloves.
Speaker 2: Again, I got.
Speaker 1: Quite a few onion bulbs given, not onion garlic bulbs
given to me. So I've planted all them ones and
they were massive. The clothes were absolutely massive.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: I shared this video on YouTube of what the clothes
looked like before I planted them. And while they were massive,
they have not actually started sprouting yet. The ones that
I were given and they've been in about three weeks.
And I planted some which I got from Amazon because
I didn't know I was getting these ones given me,
so I ordered some of Amazon and I planted them
ones as soon as they came. And they've been in
about four weeks and they only took about a week
to start sprouting. I couldn't believe it. They were like
shooting out of the ground straight away. So they're well
on the way. But we just need the cold weather
to get them to form the garlic clove itself, because
that's the reason why you plant them at this time
of year, is because it needs the cold to help
form the garlic bulb itself. Without the cold weather, it'll
just end up being a clove. So that's why it
needs to cold to help break the clove to form
the bulb. It's very complicated stuff, very scientific, but yeah,
that's why it needs the cold weather for it to
be done. So. I know some people sometimes try and
grown from March onward, but they won't do as well.
You need to plant them now if you want to
grow some garlic. So if you're listening to this podcast
and you've not planted any garlic, make sure, you go
out and buy some and plant it as you've still
got plenty of time because the cold weather's not come yet.
We've not had a frost. The frosty weather's not come yet.
I'm up north and I've not seen no frosty mornings yet.
I've not had to scrape the car yet, so we're
doing well. We have not even had a frost yet.
So if you're wanting to plant some garlic and you've
not got a garden center there yet, just go to
the supermarket. Have a look in the supermarket and have
a look at the country where the garlic comes from. Now,
if it's from the UK or Europe, any European country,
that's fine to grow. If it says it's from China
or Russia, it might be a lot harder to grow.
You can still try it, but it might not do
as well because it'll be used to their climates, which
obviously China's a lot hotter and Russia is a lot colder,
so they're not necessarily used to our climates, so they
may not grow properly.
Speaker 2: So that's a word of warning.
Speaker 1: But obviously you can go out to the supermarket and
buy garlic and grow it from there as long as
it's from a European country, as that's what I've done
in the past when they've ran out in the garden centers,
I've just ended up having to go to the supermarket
to buy some and I've done I've done well with them.
I've had fantastic crops and produced from them. So you
can never not try that. And I know some people
had to go at me because they're saying, oh, you're
putting garden centers out of business, But at the end
of the day, it's just the same fingers what they allen.
Obviously you can't the core seed varieties are grown to
be grown again if you get me. But it all
comes down to the same thing. It's the same as
growing potatoes from supermarket. A lot of people say, don't
grow and from ones at the supermarket. You've got to
buy seed potatoes because the one's in the supermarket have
obviously been spread or stuff like that done trum. But
my dad's growing is from supermarket for the last few
years and they've done absolutely fantastic with is not I
had to complaint from the supermarket potatoes whatsoever. So that's
what I did. I've planted some which are due to
be harvested for Christmas. But as you'll have seen from
my previous YouTube video that they are actually ready to
harvest now the plants have died off. So this weekend
I'm going to be harvesting my Christmas potatoes in November
a month airly, but we'll see how well they actually do,
and I'll do a reveal video of how well they've
actually grown and how well they've come out. As I'm
always honest, I tell you if it's worked, if it's
not worked, if we've had a disaster, I'm very upen
and honest, Like I'll always admit that I'm not a
professional gardener.
Speaker 2: I'll just dry things and if it works, it works.
Speaker 1: That's how you learn things, don't you just trying different
things out. So, yeah, those are the main two things
that we're planting are onion and garlic. Now come back
later on in the week and we'll talk about some
of the other things what I'm growing this month, and
hopefully you'll join in, and if you've not planted unions
and garlic, get some planted, especially garlic, as it's easy
to purchase to plant. Obviously onions you need to go
to somewhere like Wilker's or bnm's or Garden Center to
go and find them sets the plant So let me
know send me a message if you're going to be
planting some. I'd love to hear from everybody if I've
encouraged you to plant some, make sure you do. Give
us a follower, give us a like, leave a rating,
and feel free to share it as well to your
Instagram stories this podcast. The more people get listening, the
better it gets out there, and I've been having loads
of people listen, so thank you to everybody that does listen.
Until next time, everyone, remember keep spiling, keep shining, and
keep Guardening with Ben. Thank you for joining me on
this episode of Gardening with Ben. I hope you have
found some useful tips and inspiration for.
Speaker 2: Your own gardening and allotment journey.
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